Burn This Book

Sometime back in the Plestiscene Epoch, Meta Cranky took an exacting class on Feminism and Romanticism at the New Jersey School for the Impoverished. What MC mostly remembers is revision upon revision of her essay on Frankenstein and hysteria. Exacting Professor has now moved down the turnpike to the New Jersey School for Hedge Fund Managers; there, her web page states, "I care about literary aesthetics and remain a `close reader' of its complex forms." We were all about complex forms at the School for the Impoverished, and MC was slightly hysterical herself by the time the essay was completed and, eventually, published.

MC was successfully repressing this part of her sordid past until she received a phone call from Righteously Indignant California Co-ed. "Are you the Meta Cranky who wrote an essay on Frankenstein?" she asked. MC went by "Cranky Graduate Student" then, but on the whole, yes. If you thought that people of California were Righteously Indignant about property taxes, being defrauded by Enron, or having a $20 billion budget deficit, you have yet to hear them on the topic of plagiarism. California Co-ed found MC's essay reprinted in the book pictured above. Except that it is no longer attributed to MC. Instead, it's written by a scholar called Dr. S.P. Swain, Head of the Department of English, Rourkela Municipal College, Rourkela, India. On her end of the phone, MC heard California Co-ed doing a very good imitation of Nora Charles as she forwarded correspondence from Indian publishers and the U.S. copyright office. Clearly, she had sleuthed this matter for days and was aghast that this book, now selling for $45 in its second printing, was apparently being sold to Indian undergraduates. Just for fun, compare MC's 1993 version with the Indian essay, copyright 2002. What a coincidence!

MC doubts that she's missing out on a financial windfall here. But she is bitter that S.P. Swain, comfortably ensconced on the Indian subcontinent, merrily puts his name on her work without ever having set foot in the Exacting Professor's class at the School for the Impoverished. If names like Learned Hand, Sonia Sotomayor, or Judge Judy count for anything, then justice will be exacted from Dr. S.P. Swain, Head of the Department of English, Rourkela Municipal College. If MC gets to choose the manner of her vindication, it will be this: Dr. Swain will need to become a close reader of the complex forms of literary aesthetics. And MC knows just where he can take lessons.
--MC

Literacy is Complicated

With her advanced age working against her, MC remembers only vaguely the days before Cranky #1 could read. Now that she's mastered literacy, the task is to persuade her to put down the book in order to bathe, dress, or eat. When C1 seemed dangerously late arriving home from school last week, she was discovered reading on the front porch. Clearly, MC is going to have that GPS chip implanted in children who can't turn their phones on.

With Cranky #2, however, literacy is bright and new. How thrilling to listen to C1 spell out b-l-a-c-k, and know what she doesn't want you to know! Literacy, however, means that the days of abbreviating, skimming, or bowdlerizing bedtime stories are over. Try to shorten a tedious Magic Bus yawner, and you'll get, "Where does it say that?" And then MC is so busted.

Most recently, C2 has revved up her Disney Chinese Princess-wanna-be fetish to explore The Middle Kingdom. MC thinks this latest trip to the library is timely and perhaps even prescient; since the Chinese appear to be holding the entire planet's debt, the Crankies ought to show a little interest. C2's books on Chinese history, however, are not for the kindergarten set, even if they did come from the children's shelves. MC was with these educational books as far as the Shang king's burial, with its accompanying ritual slaughter. The things some people will do to get their property declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Turn some pages and the Huns arrive; MC started skimming at the Mongol conquest of A.D. 1215, where Zhongdu takes it on the chin.

MC drew the line, however, at the fall of the Ming in 1644, with its accompanying picture of a sweet girl being restrained by brutish louts. We'll just skip that one, thought MC. C2 mightily resisted this censoring. This young woman might be a princess--she might even be Mulan! When C2 pointed at the picture and repeated her request, MC attempted evasion: "The emperor's daughter didn't want to leave the city, so the emperor took her by the arm," she said authoritatively. Jeez, it fits with the picture. "That doesn't start with the," protested C2. She then started to sound out emperor's complicated name. Alright, let's try this one, "When the rebel army came, they captured the girl." "But girl starts with g," said C2, "guh-irl." OK, ok, ok. "When Chongzhen's daughter refuses to end her life, the furious emperor orders her arm to be cut off." There. MC read it. The Crankies spent the next five minutes talking about why people would be so mean. Then they finished up by looking at pictures of Pu Yi being evicted from the Forbidden City in 1924.
Perhaps there are countries that have more violent histories than China, but there are few that have longer ones. With a working knowledge of phonics, silent-e, and what two vowels do when they go out walking, the Crankies took a spin through some major Asian carnage. Thanks for all the fun, Disney. Since we're reading and all, maybe we could move on to our other favorite animated princess, Pocahontas, and see how it works out for those Powhatan folks.
--MC

Why We Walk

Crankies #1 and #2 have been able to receive state-funded educations only because they can walk to school. It's not like it's the Long March or anything--it's only four blocks. They have been driven on occasions that involve driving rain or science projects. Yet in the main, they walk. With umbrellas, with puffy coats, with hurriedly collected gloves, with bare feet on the way home.
C2 required some encouragement as she began her commute to kindergarten. In fairness, she started in a merciless August. The outbound trip at 7:30 a.m. generally was fine, but the inbound trip, in the heat of the afternoon, was not. She would say, in so many words, "It's too freaking hot," and then sit down on the curb. Soon she began trolling the parking lot for friendly faces behind the wheel. When she saw friends in the back seat, often she'd just open their doors and climb in. More than once, we received travelers' aid after being able to complete only 2.5 blocks of our journey.

Spring, however, is a different story. If you didn't feel like skipping when you left the house, the spirit probably will move you when you see the neighbors' iris bed--an impressive swath across the entire front of their lot. The climbing roses on the fence in Block 3 also merit significant attention and tend to pick up the pace. Kitties, sidewalk construction crews, men with interesting ties. It's all good.

Many of the Crankies' classmates walk to school, and they are passed by a fair number of small people on bicycles. The cul-de-sac beyond the Crankies' domicile, however, seems to be a bridge too far. Four blocks, apparently, is the outer limit of walkability, since the neighbors two doors down have learned to read only with the help of fossil fuels. One kind neighbor recently helped out with transportation issues when a family needed a hand. And, being the altruistic type, she kindly offered Meta Cranky a ride home after children were deposited. Sinking into the depths of some fine GM upholstery, MC heard her neighbor ask, "Do you walk because you want to?" MC tried out several answers in her head. No, I walk because I've turned the two Toyotas in my driveway into planters. No, I walk so I can smell my neighbors' tailpipe emissions. MC finally came up with something like, "I'd rather not deal with the traffic at the school. That's why I walk."

Herr Cranky, of course, formulated the diplomatic-yet-honest answer. Next time, he suggested, MC could say, "I walk so I can meet my neighbors." Of course he's right. Would the Crankies have had first dibs at the take-it-it's-free buffet in Block 2 if they had driven a Buick to school? Nope. Instead, they scored a dozen bottles of Opi nail polish in some rather metabolic colors. From her carseat, would C2 have chatted up the guy standing next to the excavated water pipe in Block 3 to suss out his wife's name? It's the same as C2's! What a coincidence!

On one trip home, the Crankies chatted with a neighbor on the not-sidewalk side of the street. Since the house stands up the side of a hill, with no sidewalk in front, C2 had not previously lingered in this neighbor's yard, climbed her steps, or complimented her flowers. As C2 explored this new territory, this neighbor shared her knowledge of long-ago Austin, which she had observed from her perch in Block 2 for 70 years. During the chat, Block 2 Neighbor started making connections: "Your husband walked your other daughter to school, didn't he?" Yes, until C1 moved on to middle school, the outbound trip had belonged exclusively to Herr Cranky. Block 2 Neighbor had, apparently, watched C1 grow up during these daily walks, and mused about her own walks with her own father. MC briefly flashed on Boo Radley's intimate observations of neighborhood children, but Block 2 Neighbor wasn't creepy, and she didn't look at all like Robert Duvall. B2N's observation just emphasized: the Crankies have been walking to school since the first George W. Bush administration. They're practically an institution.

Spring weather means that outbound morning walks can be nippy, while inbound afternoon walks are, like Mary Poppins, Practically Perfect in Every Way. With weather like this, the Crankies expect fabulous things, and often they get them. Here are the results of one walk home:

Block 1: Help a neighbor's son wash a car. Squirt water on your feet.
Block 2: Run to catch up with Walking Mom and ask her why she's not walking her dogs. Check on rose bushes.
Block 3: Move the ducks at the dog-watering station. Then run to get to the swing in Block 4.
C2 rounds a corner and is no longer in MC's line of vision. MC enters Moderate State of Alert.
Block 4: Block 2 Neighbor rounds corner and, looking back at C2 on swing, says to MC, "Oh, there you are."

After walking to school for almost an entire school year, C2 is something of an expert on how it's done. Her considered analysis is this: "Sometimes when it's winter and fall, you go slow. And sometimes when it's spring and summer, you go a little fast."
--MC

The Club

Some time back, Meta Cranky spent a few weeks trying to identify pictures in Hazel's photo album. She had this one pegged as a school get-together, since the back of the image looks to be a country-school stage. Check out Hazel, third from the right in back, and then tell me that you wouldn't photograph better if you wore that hat. That lipstick also shows up well in b&w.

MC started sleuthing after she recognized Minnie, sitting to the left of her young granddaughter in the front row. Minnie's daughter directed MC to Margaret, the little girl's mother, sitting to the little girl's right. This group, Margaret reported, was the Federated Farm Women, a social group for country ladies. Margaret said, "I always just called it `The Club.'" The Club gave these women an excuse to get out of the house and chat with their neighbors, and Margaret said she missed it when she moved to town.

This cold winter, Margaret passed away, and those at her funeral viewed vintage pictures of the person she had been before she arrived at Cranky Home Town. Margaret was a British war bride who arrived with a college degree and a clipped accent. She also arrived pregnant, rather more so than her marriage license would have indicated, and her mother-in-law couldn't forgive her for it. Minnie made it her life's work to make Margaret feel unwelcome, since, by her calculations, her daughter-in-law had set a trap for an American serviceman and his generous benefit package.

MC's father, Major Cranky, once regaled her with a story of a predatory British nurse seeking American citizenship. While in a London hospital, Major Cranky became a particular nurse's object of desire. Since he didn't return her interest, he introduced her to a friend. Major Cranky's friend had a date with the nurse before he returned to North Africa with his battalion. Now comes that clincher for Major Cranky: His friend didn't begin to manifest symptoms of V.D. until after he was back in a war zone. That mean that he immediately was hospitalized and drew combat pay. In summary, MC's father said, "It worked out well for everybody."

But Margaret was not the predator type. She married her G.I. and never looked back; apparently she never returned to Britain, and her relatives never came to her. She and her G.I. remained married until death did them part. Margaret joined her club, and she stuck with it. Thinking of Margaret, an English island in the sea of Cranky Hometown, MC thinks of the Han princess who was stolen away by the Huns in the second century C.E. Living among the Tartars, she wrote

Earth was pitiless.

It brought me to birth in such a time.

War was everywhere. Every road was dangerous.
Soldiers and civilians everywhere
Fleeing death and suffering.
. . . I can never learn the ways of the barbarians.

Because Margaret learned our ways, we never entirely learned hers. But in her graciousness, she never made us feel like barbarians.
--MC

*fact-check update: Margaret's baby was six months old when she arrived in Cranky Hometown. She and baby came through Ellis Island and then made a week-long train trip from New York.

Vinyl

photo credit to The Costumes Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Long ago, in a basement far, far away, teenaged MC put on an ancient LP to make her conscripted labor pass more quickly. She made a random choice from a pile and was pleasantly surprised to hear perky, big-band saxophones. Imagine her surprise, then, as she watched her mother, the Cranky Sergeant, gasp and drop onto a seat with her hands folded over her bosom. MC looked at Cranky Sergeant expectantly and got this response: "String of Pearls." OK, now we're getting somewhere, thought MC, and she ventured, "Benny Goodman?" Almost disdainful, CS whispered, "Glenn Miller."

In addition to all the other Greatest Generation accomplishments (saving the world, inventing plastic), the taste-makers of the 1940s made some pop-culture choices that have withstood the ravages of time. A torch singer, a good clarinet player, and there you go. It matters somewhat whether Ilsa stays with Rick, but the crucial info is where did Ingrid Bergman get that A-line dress?

In contrast, the taste-makers of MC's glory days have a lot of explaining to do. MC is nudged toward judgments about 70s music because Renaissance Mom is having Vintage Vinyl for her birthday party, and she encourages guests to bring their most meaningful long-playing treasures. In preparation for this geezer-fest, MC hosted a Youtube viewing of "Boogie Wonderland" for C1 and C2. C1 watched with horror as Maurice White gleefully gyrated across the stage in white jumpsuit with a keyhole cutout down to his bellybutton. She answered his grin with a curled lip. C2, however, was smitten by the Emotions' fluttery rainbow capes: she recognized kindred spirits when she saw them. By her second viewing, C1 gave herself over to the kitsch and allowed that, yes, there were some fashion advantages to wearing jeweled belts the size of area rugs.

The morning after, C2 asked if she could hear, again, the music from "the guy who shows his chest." So we did. Again, Maurice gamboled on stage with an entire village of people: an acre of brass players. Another acre of the Emotions and their swoopy capes. People strolling through the frame dressed like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, if Charlton Heston were African American and his costume were made from gold lame. The effects of high fructose corn syrup were not yet in evidence: these people were skinny, and fashion did not yet require that they be pumped up on steroids. Mostly, though, they were happy. They were not singing an angst-ridden '60s ballad or an angry rap song. They were so happy they twirled their trumpets on their index fingers. So happy they sang the chorus to one another and laughed. So happy they could unselfconsciously sing lyrics like:

Sound fly through the night
I chase my vinyl dreams to boogie wonderland.

What does that mean, really? Obviously, close reading is not the point. Cranky #2 was perhaps the best audience for Earth, Wind, and Fire at 6:30 a.m. Her review? "I like the way they shake their hair. I like them so much that if I listened to them all day I think I would go crazy in my head." She meant crazy in a good way.

MC is confident that she once owned a copy of the 1977 Earth, Wind, and Fire masterpiece All 'N All. If she gains access to the liner notes, she'll give you her thoughts on "Serpentine Fire."
--MC

Pagans, Again

MC accepts that the high holidays are built on rank commercialism and hyper-caloric intake. In her wee cranky days, Easter was all about a godzilla-sized ham and the white shoes (unscuffed!) that arrived just in time to go with a poofy home-made dress. For C1 and C2, this year's holiday included a Hello Kitty purse (pictured) and newly pierced ears. Not to mention two fabulous arrivals from the USPS Easter Bunny. Pez tastes even better when it comes in the mail.

Try as we might to wallow in sugar and pink froth, weightier events intrude. Walking to school this morning, C2 ran to reach the house whose owner kindly puts out water for neighborhood dogs and reliably places exciting plastic toys to be admired. In her kindergarten career, C2 has played with a duck family, identified animals of the African savannah, and recently gasped over giant bugs in this neighbor's front yard. When she hurried to view the bugs today, she was instead met with a sign: "Someone took the water bowl and the bugs on Easter night." MC and C2 were shocked. Animals would be thirsty. Feelings must have been hurt. Then C2 remembered that she adopted several ducks from this house when their owner offered them with a sign that said "Free!" Surely we could return those to fill up the lonely spaces.

Pondering this vandalism, MC recalled an earlier weekend encounter with urban grittiness. She helped bus the tables at Big University Church, which feeds Saturday breakfast and lunch to about 400 homeless people. In this scrum of unwashed bedrolls, the striking element of its demographic was courtesy. "Coming here in hard times is humbling," one man said. "Please tell the people here thank you for me." When MC hauled a compost bucket out to the alley, she found a knot of men smoking cigarettes around the dumpster. One took her bucket and emptied it for her. "If I hadn't been here, these guys would have mugged you," he said. MC and the guys in the alley laughed.

The smokers in the alley wouldn't have mugged MC; they respect the place that gives them weekly breakfast and lunch. Further evidence of their regard: Big University Church is remarkably graffiti-free, because the homeless men prove security 24/7. Without lapsing into sentiment, MC would like to recognize good manners when she sees them. In contrast, MC watched in frank admiration as a neighbor used Dog the Bounty Hunter techniques to retrieve her front-porch rockers from a fraternity house. Nailing the perps required this neighbor, a woman of a certain age, to attend numerous West Campus theme parties. She wouldn't tell how much beer she consumed, but she got her rockers back, and, after a talk with the house mother, a weekend of yard work from the pledge class. MC's neighborhood seems to attract chair thieves. Across the street, another neighbor recently received a bouquet rather on the large side of tasteful from the counsel of a fraternity that, um, borrowed her Adirondacks. We're good now.

Courtesy, MC observes, is a relative thing. In the alley behind Big University Church, people with no homes will sleep on private property and use the dumpster as a toilet. They might ask you for money, but they won't break into your car. In MC's neighborhood, where property values are stable and kids' test scores are high, pissing on the side of someone's trash can is pretty much beyond the pale. Fraternity boys on their way to law school, however, will steal your rocking chairs. And people with the brains and money to know better will steal cheap plastic bugs just for fun.

In summary, then, the Crankies' spent their high holiday flouncing in pink dresses, smashing a gazillion confetti eggs, repatriating some plastic ducks, and pondering the wisdom of some guys who don't know where there next meal is coming from.
--MC

Pagan Rituals

Many years ago, MC's ancient neighbor, Mrs. L., took her aside to impose order on what she saw as MC's haphazard observance of holidays. "Look," said Mrs. L. "You've got to pick a Christmas gift food. Like these cream cheese pecan tarts. You have to do the same thing every year." Then I'm sure we smoked menthol cigarettes while she showed me the recipe. It pains MC to report that, fresh out of graduate school, she mentally shuddered at the folksiness of Christmas gift foods (delivered while wearing a tacky holiday sweater, she was sure), and consequently did not file the pecan tart recipe. She's still doing her holidays free-form, and she's paying for it. Mrs. L knew, for example, that a sane person takes down her Christmas lights on Epiphany, and that she drinks gin and tonic when she hands out Halloween candy. Where some might see rigidity, others might find comfort and consistency. Do the Jews reinvent how to sit shiva every time someone dies? Doh.

Significant and insignificant rituals exist for a reason. If MC had developed a functional Easter ritual, she would know how to boil eggs without cracking five per dozen. Instead, her seat-of-the-pants troubleshooting plan is to construct egg salad out of the ruins. With a working knowledge of PAAS products and eye-dying mechanics, she could have foreseen that Cranky #2 would pluck eggs out of dye cups with her fingers and might have a clue about the staying power of egg dye. Instead, the Crankies have a household full of egg salad; how long C2 will have purple cuticles is anybody's guess.

In the cruel month of April, Eliot claims, memory mixes with desire. Heretofore, the Crankies have emphasized the desire part of the equation. C2, channeling the organized German side of her DNA, may push the needle in the other direction. A tremendous memory and a drive for uniformity may be the one thing needful for successful egg boiling. By Easter 2011, C2 ought to be able to read eHow.com and the instructions on the back of the PAAS box. If that's the case, you can bet we'll get a set of protocols.
--MC